30 Useless Parapsychics

1. Reflexokinesis

This unusual power is rare, and allows the user to redirect and absorb kinetic energy, and move it reflexively through and around their body. The end result is that they are elastic and can bounce like a basketball. These 'Bouncers' are largely immune to falling damage, bludgeoning damage, or general concussion based force. Bouncers can be problematic because their power runs amok if contained, and their control over redirecting the kinetic energy is reflex based, so often almost impossible to control. Bouncers who start channeling power struggle to do things like a normal person but even a footstep can send them flipping through the air.

2. Animal Psychotronics

Animal Psychotronics have the ability to communicate with animals. This would normally seem like a useful and powerful ability, but the Cosmic Era still has a ravaged biosphere so the number of actual large and dangerous animals is exceedingly low. Most APs have their empathic and mind controlling powers limited to rats, squirrels, cats, and other small animals. The power of mundane animals is also limited, especially in a world with power armor, beam weapons, and robotic drones.

3. Molecular Disruption

Molecular Disruption is in essence, a very useful power, the problem is that the majority of parapsis who develop this power have it not as an offensive ability, but more commonly use it to render anything they put in their mouth soft enough to bite through and edible. Having a person who can render even nuclear waste safe is useful, them having to eat it to do so, not so much.

4. Kaleidoscopic Manifestation

Also known as KM, this power is an uncontrolled manifestation of photokinesis. Rather that lasers, photonic blasts, invisibility, and so forth, kaleidoscopic manifestation is the ability to emit chaotic fractal color and light patterns. While canny users can branch into other devotions, most KMs are most suited for being party entertainment than focused parapsis.

5. Humekinesis

A startlingly rare power, this is the ability of a non-human entity to appear as a human being. This is mostly commonly caused by mundane animals being caught in specific dimensional fatigue events, and is tragic for the animal in question. The power to appear human doesn't give them any special insight to human thought, rationality, or understanding of human languages. Most creatures who are victims of this power prefer self termination over adapting and becoming functional humans.

6. Meakinesis

The power of Meakinesis, and its related power, partikinesis, are the ability to increase in size, and reduce in size. The problem is that these are two completely different devotions that most fiction lump together into a single power. If a man can jump, there is no consideration about his ability to come back down. Meakinetics can increase in size, but this power is one way, they do not have the innate ability to return to their normal size. They keep getting larger and larger, and eventually reach the power where they are too large for their bodies to support their weight and typically die from heart or organ failure.

7. Partikinesis

Partikinesis is the ability to reduce in size, and like meakinesis, is not a paired powered. Partikinetics can best be summed up as the Incredible Shrinking Man. Each time they use their power, they get smaller and smaller, and eventually they vanish completely, lost into the atomic soup. A parapsi who learns both Meakinesis and partikinesis are exceedingly rare.

8. Antikinesis

Antikinesis is a theoretical power, and one that has a massive drawback. A person who manifests antikinesis is immune to all other forms of parapsychic power, they simply do not work on them. pyrokinetic fire doesnt burn them or their clothes, mind controllers cant touch them. Hyperstrong characters cant knock them down, the hyperfast cant even touch them. This extends to arcanotech, they cannot be hit by exotic beam weapons, and are only distantly even aware of dimensional fatigue events. The only weakness? Literally anything else. A normal human can knock them out, a conventional gun will kill, accidental falls, and so forth. Most potential antikinetics might avoid being shot with a beam rifle, but dont survive a power armor trooper caving in their skull with a steel fist.

9. Audiokinesis

Sound manipulation is a highly specialized power, and the majority of audiokinetics have careers as DJs and sound editors.

10. Lipokinesis

Lipokinesis is the rather gross ability to control lipids, or fat, within the body. Most escape this power and become basic biokinetics. Those who do not gain the ability to increase their strength and durability but only by drastically increasing their body mass. The most successful lipokinetics embrace something known as the Buxomatic Lifestyle and use their power to give themselves massively exaggerated lips, breasts, hips, and other sexual characteristics. This power is far more prominent among women than men.

11. Unstable Speculokinesis

A form of biokinesis, speculokinesis is the ability to take on the form of another, parapsychic doppelgangers. This is normally a very useful power, but the far more common version is classified as unstable speculokinesis, and it isn't under the control of the parapsychic who has it. The most common application of this power is that the parapsi involuntarily assumes all the physical attributes and appearance of the last person they came in contact with. While conditionally useful, this power is detrimental to the person using it because they never have a chance to return to their original and true form, and are constantly mimicking the last person they touched. This also makes healthy normal relationships impossible.

12. Unstable Psychekinesis

Psychokinesis is the devotion of mind control and manipulation, and its inverse is psychekinesis, self control and manipulation of the parapsi's mind. The unstable psychekinetic randomly rerolls their knowledges, nature, demeanor, etc. Like the unstable speculokinetic, the unstable psychekinetic can 'steal' traits and other abilities from those around them, but they do not have control over it. An unstable psychekinetic is as likely to hijack a villain's parapsychic powers and use them (themselves already being parapsi) as they are to pick up their ability to appraise art, speak a foreign language, or their deviant sexual orientation. The largest challenges facing unstable psychekinetics are the loss of sense of self, alienation from others who cannot trust or associate with the constantly changing parapsi, and the strength of mental attributes borrowed are related to the willpower of the person they came from. The memories and abilities of the strong willed last, or linger, while the weaker willed are quickly swept away, regardless of what the parapsi wants.

13. Flaming Skull

A form of unstable pyrokinesis, the Flaming Skull parapsychic power allows the parapsi to wreath their skull in flames, which looks cool and is intimidating as hell. Unfortunately this is going to continually start fires around them, set off fire suppression systems, and prevent them from wearing any sort of head mounted special equipment or even a helmet.

14. Unstable Pheromone Production

Seen as an inconvenient form of biokinesis, and a faulty cybernetic modification, unstable pheromones function like normal pheromones and cause cause those around the parapsi to be attracted to them, or intimidated by them. Normally a useful power, the unstable variant is not. The strength of the pheromones cannot be controlled, nor can when they activate. A parapsi can be attempting to pursue normal life activities and find themselves stymied because the store clerk is suddenly and irrationally terrified of them, or be constantly hounded by pheromone junkies they've accidentally created.

15. Moral Compass Manipulation

A peculiar and rare power, and a highly focused form of psychokinesis, the ability to manipulate a person's moral compass grants the parapsi the ability to change a person's alignment. Heroes can be turned to villains, monsters into martyrs, and the meek into beasts. This would normally be a modestly useful power, the ability to make villains into heroes. It is seriously burdened by its tendency to bring the worst out of normal people. The average person is a walking mass of repressed emotions and bottled up urges and drives, and they go through their day fine. The MCM parapsi unlocks this, and these normal 'NPC' individuals emerge from their civilization indoctrination and become what and who they really want to be inside. It gets messy. MCMs are walking liabilities.

16. Psionic Medianism

The parapsychic ability of psionic medianism allows the parapsychic to emulate the median attributes of their surroundings. The vast majority of the time, this allows a psionic median to function as an exceedingly average person in terms of attributes and abilities.

There is a general concern that there are many more parapsychic humans on Earth than expected because a herd like ability like PMed would be almost impossible to detect. Behold the mighty Average Man!

17. Gravitas

Not to be mistaken for any sort of gravity manipulation ability, Gravitas is the parapsychic ability to make other people take the parapsi seriously. This power allows for the user to express ludicrous views, make improbable statements, or wear the most outlandish of outfits, and they will be given a reasonable and rational response to their claims. This is also known as the psionic ability to force moral equivalency.

More than one ridiculous extremist with no other powers, and a manifesto nuttier than squirrel droppings, can end up being treated as a serious threat, and no one mocking them for dressing like a comic book villain, or having the color pallete of a 1991 Trapper Keeper. This power would be more powerful, but such psionics tend to have no other powers or abilities.

18. Tardigradism

The tardigrade, or the water bear, can survive in extreme conditions ranging from hard vacuum, radiation, extreme water pressure, being frozen, or even being desiccated. Like the creature, a parapsychic with this ability can survive in truly extreme environments. While this might be a very useful power, is is a useless one because there is no way that the ability can be tested for, and the powers dont emerge unless the parapsi is exposed to those conditions fully. This also doesnt make them any tougher or more durable when it comes to resisting damage or accidents. They are not immortal, just exotically and situationally invulnerable.

19. Autogorgonism

Also known as self petrification, the parapsychic has the ability to turn themselves into stone or a similar invulnerable material. The glaring flaw with this power is that there is no innate ability to turn themselves from stone back to human.

20. Lesser Animalistic Polymorphism

The lesser animalistic polymorph has the parapsychic ability to alter their biology to look like the hybridization of their human form and a single chosen animal form. This seldom extends past a 10% threshold creating parapsychics who opt to use their powers to become catgirls and furries. These self mutations almost never yield increases in attributes or any sort of transhuman abilities. The catgirl lacks feline balance, nictating membranes, night vision, or anything other than ears in the wrong place, facial hair, and a tail that is no where near as nice to have as they hoped.

21. Pecunakinesis

A peculiar sort of power, pecunakinesis, grants the user increased abilities based entirely on how much money they have. This isn't anything like investments and bank accounts, but how much actual gold, jewelry, or currency they have physically on their person. This comes with several major drawbacks, if divested of their wealth, this could cause the death of the parapsi if they were injured, and as most all parapsychics come from economically downtrodden backgrounds, never have the amount of wealth in hand for their powers to shine. Those who do, are more likely to give this to others, and inadvertently disempower themselves. This power is not a conscious one.

22. Musicorium

Musicorium is the ability to convert parapsychic potential into the ability to make music. It is suspected that Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen was a musicorium parapsi who used his ability to continue his career as a blistering drummer despite losing an arm in an accident. While this power is very culturally relevant, its use in a cyberpunk/metahuman/transhuman game is entirely fluff based. Unless the GM has a way for a musician or singer to be tactically musical.

23. Polygenderism

A polygender parapsychic has the ability to biologically switch their gender. This transition can be forced quickly, but is taxing on the parapsi, and the more frequently they use this power, the more their self identity is weakened, and the more prone they are to gender dysphoria, border personality disorder, and other personality disorders. The other downside of this power is that the person remains predominantly recognizable regardless of their expressed biological gender.

24. Arcukinesis

Arcukinesis is functionally similar to a gun adept, but their powers are grown around sports, sports equipment, and sports rules. This power can make the parapsi an exceptional athlete, but they can become prone to entering parapsychic burn, or pulling off feats that out their abilities. Most sports leagues like a level playing field and drugs, cybernetics, and genetic augments are banned, an outed parapsychic can be banned from the sport. Their best option is to enter Harlem Globetrotter or sports exhibitions, where their skills and abilities are more magic act or entertainment than actual sports competition. Likewise, an arcukinetic is going to be bound by the limitations of their sport, as they have likely spent years at it. A golfing arcukinetic without a club or a gold ball is powerless.

25. Necrokinesis

Better known as an unhealthy fascination with death, a necrokinetic parapsychic typically comes from an extended background of abusing and killin animals, harming other people, and even indulging in necrophilia. They are more comfortable around the dead than the living, and the extent of how much they can actually communicate with spirits and the dead, and how much is deeply rooted psychosis is a matter of debate. A necrokinetic can use their power to create hallucinations that look like ghosts (or conjure ghost spirits and communicate with the) reanimate the dead (the difference between necromancy and corpse telekinesis is minor and a matter of academic and philosophical debate.

26. Autopraemikinesis

A stunning one use power, the autopraemikentic has the ability to turn their entire body, or part of their body into pure explosive material. The blast is related to the mass of the parapsi, and is limited to the fact that a person can only explode one time and then they are dead. There are variants of this power, praemikinetics can make other things explode, but this remains problematic because this almost always requires physical contact with the item being detonated, and standing next to a bomb is just a really bad idea.

27. Echokinesis

Also known as mimeokinesis, and speculokinesis, the echokinetic can change their voice to mimc any voice, or sound they've heard, emulating human voices with ease, animal sounds, and even acting like speaking playing music from memory. The downside is that remembered audio has much lower fidelity and unless the echokinetic is a music major, its going to have flaws. Over time, echokinetics tend to lose their own voice and forget how to speak for themselves and have to create patchwork conversations from what they've heard, because they aren't creating it themselves, they are merely repeating a sound wave they heard. 

28. Alvearokinesis

Literally the power to create a hive mind, the alvearokinetic creates a constant bubble around themselves and everyone within this bubble has to resist with their willpower or become part of the parapsychic hive mind. This power doesn't make the parapsi the controller of the hive, that goes to the person with the highest willpower or concentration skill, which is almost never going to be the person who's parapsychic power is going with the crowd. Prolonged exposure to a hive mind situation is highly erosive to the psyche, and most alvearokinetics have the personality of a pebble or a house plant. Long term victims of their power are largely the same. 

29. Organikinesis

Organikinesis is a horrifying parapsychic manifestation of uncontrolled biokinesis. Organikinetics manifest multiple organs, limbs, and basically act like teratogenic cancer is a power. The organikinetic has the wrong number of bodyparts. Three faces, sure. five mouths, totally, three arms, why not. They have no special powers from these new appendages other than what they would normally be able to do, some can see out of their manifested eyes, some can speak out of all of their mouths, but overall its just horrifying.

30. Skink Tail

One of the stranger and more disturbing parapsychic abilities allows the practitioner to treat their flesh like clay. This means that at any time, they can remove their own body mass, and discard it. The biomass quickly degenerates once it is no longer in proximity to the vector, and over time, the missing mass can be regrown. Some can throw their own limbs, others can disgorge their internal organs as a defensive measure, and then flee while their aggressor is chowing down on fresh guts or is shocked by the horror of what they have experienced. How the parapsi survive this sort of trauma is not known, but they typically demonstrate rapid healing and regeneration, proportionate to both calories consumed and their power activity level. A skink tail practitioner can discard an arm, vomit up half their organs, and then keeping their power active ransack a buffet and restore themselves in a matter of hours.